Jan. 25, 2017 "Honey, I can't find the soy sauce": Today I found this article by Micah Toub in the Globe and Mail. This article is about psychology and how the male and female brains work:
Some scientists say there’s a biological reason women are better suited to unglamorous daily cooking. Stay-at-home dad Micah Toub writes on overcoming a domestic blind spot.
Correcting my fridge vision wasn’t something I deliberately set out to do. It was, instead, the unintended result of becoming a part-time, stay-at home parent, when it made more sense for me to take over duties in the kitchen – a place where the list of my responsibilities previously comprised making coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches.
In that former life, I have stared into the fridge, observed a jumble of differently shaped objects of various colours and collapsed from mental exhaustion. “Where’s the mustard?” I call to the other room. “It’s in the open-your-eyes section,” was the usual answer from my wife, but with an additional, more colourful word thrown in. But now that I’ve been house cook for six months, locating the soy sauce on the middle shelf of the door, or remembering a half used cucumber in the crisper, is a snap.
This fridge clarity, I’ve come to think, must mean that my brain is evolving. I can almost hear the new hum in there.
You may have heard refrigerator blindness referred to as “male refrigerator blindness.” When I made Facebook inquiries on the matter, it invited comments such as, “OMG, my husband has NO CLUE what is in our fridge or pantry, except Kraft Dinner, pepperoni sticks and cheddar cheese. (Not even other kinds of cheese.)”
According to Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself and a leading thinker in the field of neuroplasticity, there’s some justification for calling it that.
“On average, women are much better at object recognition (so actually better able to see that small bottle of anchovies hidden at the back of the fridge, camouflaged by all the different shapes and colours),” he wrote in an e-mail, citing research by Simon Fraser’s Doreen Kimura that shows how sex hormones influence our brain functioning.
“Men, on the other hand, on average, are better at visual spatial rotation (rotating images, or maps, in their heads).”
These findings, he said, have been replicated in other studies, some of which use ancient ancestry as an explanation: Men were out hunting large areas while women stayed closer to home, focused on objects in detail.
To any fridge-blind man, I wish you luck in using the it’s just-my-male-brain-heritage excuse for not seeing what’s in the fridge. In an age when men and women often balance domestic duties, what’s more relevant is that, within some limits, the object-recognition processors in our brains can adapt.
“If you are doing that work regularly and with gusto, those circuits will form some increased connections between the individual neurons, and fire faster, sharper signals,” Doidge confirmed.
My survey of friends, acquaintances and randoms online brought forward no one else like me (although I’m sure they exist). I heard from, instead, a handful of men who had long possessed perfect fridge vision.
Jared McSween, a 45-year-old father of two kids under 7, has always been his household’s primary cook, and his brain changed much earlier than mine. Raised by a single mother in a house with three older siblings, he performed solo food preparation as young as 6, and eventually embraced cooking as something that would give him, the youngest, some power and control.
As a teen, he enjoyed the caretaking aspect of cooking for his whole family.
While a man who takes the lead in the household kitchen is certainly not new, McSween’s experience confirms we still carry our evolutionary assumptions and judgments. “Within the context of family and close friends, I have a huge amount of security and pride when it comes to this role,” he says. “With some other folks or social circles – guys at the hockey rink or in business meeting – there is some insecurity about speaking about it.”
Meanwhile, he pointed out the other blindness we have when it comes to domestic duties.
When people make a huge deal about how great it is he does all the cooking for his family, he understands the praise as a double standard. “I have some friends whose wives do this work and they don’t receive the same accolades,” he says. “And I would never say to my buddy, ‘You’re so lucky to have your wife doing all that.’ ”
Indeed, the greatest benefit of overcoming a domestic blind spot may well be the retrospective empathy for the mental load your partner has carried for so long. That, and quick access to mustard.
Jan. 9, 2018 "The hidden influences that shape our eating habits": Today I found this article by Wency Leung in the Globe and Mail. This is a really good article about how we can make ourselves eat more of the healthy food and less of the unhealthy food. I find the tips helpful:
The New Year has barely begun and already your plans to eat more healthfully are skidding off track. You couldn't help but devour the holiday chocolates. You've nibbled your way to the bottom of a bag of chips, without even really enjoying them. And that kale you've been meaning to eat? It's wilting in your vegetable crisper. But don't fret. Your willpower is probably just fine.
There's a whole host of external factors that determine what and how you eat, from what's written on the packaging and the colour of your dinnerware to the noise level of your surrounding environment.
That's the focus of Dr. Rachel Herz's new book Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship With Food, which looks at the many influences on the way we consume and experience food.
Herz is a neuroscientist known for her work on the psychology of smell. She teaches at Brown University and Boston College, and has authored the previous books The Scent of Desire and That's Disgusting.
Her latest book offers support for the notion that many of the problems we experience with food, from overeating to picky eating, aren't moral failings.
We can't simply will ourselves to eat less or expand our palates – our relationship with food is much more complicated than that. Whether we think a food item is decadent or low-calorie can affect how our bodies respond to it; our appetites are often influenced by the people we're with; and how familiar we are with certain foods determines how filling they seem.
But understanding these factors allows us to manipulate them to our advantage, Herz says.
"This book should make people feel that they have the power. They can take back the meal," she says. "What I'm hoping is that people can see how they can use this information to change their relationship with food."
Herz spoke with The Globe and Mail about hidden factors that shape our meals, including a little-known factor that makes airplane food taste so bland.
'Healthy' labels
How they influence you: It's probably no surprise that when a food item is labelled "healthy," people tend to eat more of it. Might as well have two helpings of ice cream if it's "low-calorie," right? But just thinking something is healthy can actually change your body's response to it – and not necessarily in a desirable way.
The science: Herz describes a Yale University study in which participants were given the same 340-calorie vanilla milkshake, labelled two different ways. For one group, the milkshake was called "Indulgence" and labelled as containing 620 calories. For the other, it was called "Sensi-shake," and labelled as having zero-per-cent fat, no added sugar and 140 calories.
Those who drank the "Indulgence" shake experienced an immediate surge in the hunger-signalling hormone ghrelin after an initial taste. But a half-hour later, their ghrelin levels plummeted three times more than in those who drank the "Sensi-shake," whose ghrelin levels remained flat. That means simply believing they were drinking a high-calorie shake made participants' bodies respond accordingly; they felt less hungry, regardless of the actual calorie content.
The take-away: "If … you're interested in not having your body pack on every calorie that's in the food, you should approach all food as it being decadent, to the extent that you can," Herz says.
Familiar foods
How they influence you: What makes food filling? Besides attributes such as being high in fat, providing roughage and being served in solid form instead of as a liquid, Herz says there's also a psychological factor at play: The more familiar a food is to you, the more satiating it seems.
The science: Herz points to a study from the University of Bristol in which participants were shown pictures of various common foods, all in 200-calorie portions, and asked how often they ate them. Then they were asked how filling they thought each food was. Participants rated the foods they consumed most frequently as most filling.
The take-away: Familiar foods act as a signifier that you've eaten or that you're satisfied with what you consume, Herz says, which explains why individuals accustomed to eating rice may only feel full when they've had rice, or why those accustomed to eating meat and potatoes don't feel a meal is complete without those staples. She suggests you can use this to your advantage to train yourself to feel satisfied with eating vegetables.
"If after your lunch, you have a couple celery sticks or a couple carrot sticks or whatever, then that sort of becomes a psychological marker for being full and being done eating," she says.
Colours
How they influence you: Remember Pepsi-Cola's failed colourless Crystal Pepsi? Or Heinz's short-lived green ketchup? Colour has a big impact on how we experience food, and whether we're willing to consume it. But the colour red, in particular, can influence us in multiple ways, Herz says. Since we associate red with the colour of ripe fruit, it can make food taste sweeter, yet since it is also a signal for danger, it can curb mindless snacking.
The science: Herz describes a German study that invited participants to help themselves to pretzels, presented on either a blue, white or red plate, while they were asked to fill in a questionnaire. Those who were served pretzels on the red plate ate half as many pretzels as those who were offered them on blue or white plates.
"Red works to kind of alert you, first of all," which can make you more mindful of what you're eating, Herz explains. "And at the same time, it also makes you potentially question: Should you consume?"
The take-away: If you want to reduce absent-minded nibbling, choose a red plate, Herz suggests. But she says, if your goal is to try to encourage eating, avoid using red dishes and serving vessels.
Sounds
How they influence you: The loud, continuous hum inside an airplane dampens your perception of saltiness and sweetness, which contributes to the lacklustre taste of airplane food, Herz says. Yet the volume doesn't alter your sense of bitterness, so bitterness may be amplified, and it actually intensifies the taste of umami, or savoury brothy flavours, which explains why tomato juice is such a popular inflight beverage choice.
The science: There are three cranial nerves that innervate our perception of taste, Herz explains. One in particular, the chorda tympani, also innervates our perception of hearing. It transmits taste information from the tongue to the brain, and crosses through the ear along the way, she says.
"Loudness actually influences the degree to which our taste buds are able to communicate with the brain and it alters our taste in specific ways."
The take-away: Cranking up the volume can make an umami-rich meal more delicious, but you may want to turn it down in time for dessert.
1 comment:
Do you still have Matthew's email lol
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